City Spy:No Bubbling with enthusiasm for M&S range… yet

Wednesday 15 May 2013 11:33 BST

Last night, Marks & Sparks unveiled its autumn womenswear range, the latest attempt to put some shine to a brand that is, erm, struggling.

The High Street behemoth has made shrewd use of a bevvy of beautiful models including Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and City Spy has no doubt it was well received. As usual. But old retail hand Nick Bubb has some sage words worth heeding: “It would be wise to remember that it’s easy to make a new fashion range look good in a showroom, but hard to make it stand out in the stores.” And snappy dresser Mr Bubb should know.

* Not all markets are booming in spite of stock markets hitting pre-credit crunch highs. The London International Vintners Exchange, the exchange for investment-grade wine based in London otherwise known as Liv-ex, had a rocky April and fell 1.3%. The Wine Investment Fund blamed currency weakness and lukewarm scores from influential critic Robert Parker for the latest crop of Bordeaux releases. “Merchants are reporting a quiet campaign, with only a few wines selling well,” according to Andrew della Casa, the fund’s founding director. It’s enough to drive you to drink.

Has anyone at Bloomberg been fired yet after the scandal over its journalists spying on clients’ use of Bloomberg terminals? If only we could see when staff last logged onto their terminals…

Fuelling Stelios for new Rake attack?

Theprobe into oil price fixing that saw the offices of BP and Shell offices raided yesterday appears to have much in common with the Libor scandal. One man perfectly positioned to compare notes is Sir Mike Rake, deputy chairman of Barclays, which was fined £290 million for its part in fiddling interest rates. He also sits on the board of McGraw-Hill Financial, owner of Platts, the agency that compiles oil-price data.

Just imagine if the European Commission finds that collusion has led to artificially high prices, not just for petrol, but also for aviation fuel. Sounds like another opportunity for easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou to bark at Rake, who has just stepped down as chairman of the orange airline after a fractious relationship with its largest shareholder.

Rake is also due to replace Sir Roger Carr as president of the CBI next month. Irate drivers should form an orderly queue outside the Grosvenor House Hotel, where the employers’ group holds its annual dinner tonight.

Arbuthnot gala is worth five-year wait

The Conservative Party came out to play in the City last night as Arbuthnot Latham laid on a gala dinner at the Guildhall to celebrate its 180th anniversary. Home Secretary Theresa May led the turnout of Tory politicians which included Philip Hammond, Francis Maude, Lord Patten, Lord Young, David Davis, Michael Fallon, Chris Grayling and Mark Garnier. The bank’s chairman Henry Angest explained that he had planned to celebrate its 175th anniversary but when he saw the queues outside Northern Rock in Moorgate in September 2007 he decided celebrations the next year wouldn’t be right. More than 200 guests sat down to a Mosimann dinner followed by a 45-minute performance by Katherine Jenkins accompanied by symphony orchestra.

* Sir Christopher Meyer, a director of Arbuthnot, judged his audience well when he gave a potted history of the bank referring to George Canning’s opposition to the Concert of Europe in the 19th century. He said: “Canning had a clarity which today’s eurosceptics would willingly sell their grandmothers for.”